Years after European train operators and the airlines, Amtrak has decided it was time to add WiFi to its trains. Bus companies have found a way to sell seats for as little as $1 between New York and Boston and provide free WiFi while the train generally sells seats which start in the $50 range and as you might imagine, this fierce competition has meant the union-operated trains are losing customers and they need to fight back.

So it is a bit surprising that the new WiFi service will initially be offered on the company's fastest and most expensive trains - the Acela Express.

One would suppose this is an initial trial of course and eventually even more competitive pressure will force the company to roll out wireless service across all seats at a low rate.

One of the most trusted names in communications Carl Ford - was explaining to me recently how the upcoming tutorial on SIP at ITEXPO, January 20-22, 2010 in Miami will be the best session on SIP - anywhere. He mentioned it in passing and then I realized - wait a minute - I didn't even blog it. Am I being unfaithful to my readers? Well just in case, I decided to blog away.

Jamie Siminoff is someone I have great admiration for... He launched a company called SimulScribe which later became PhoneTag and what it did was transcribe your voicemails and send them via email. As far as I am concerned voicemail is useless without receiving it transcribed in an email with an attached MP3 file. You mean you still listen to your voicemails??

There is an unwritten rule that companies who compete with their customers are inviting trouble. When companies break this rule, generally their competition will use this information against them when there is a bid on the table. Over time, when you break this rule, it bites you in the rear.

Companies like Intel, who have a dominant position in the market, are generally able to bend or break these principles to some degree but for most others, you know where to draw the line.

In a tough decade, what could people count on to make their lives better? Communications - yes communications. 50% percent of people surveyed by Pew viewed the last decade unfavorably and 27% viewed it positively.

Here are some of the reasons they may have positive thoughts about the last ten years:

One of games my family loves to play on the iPhone is Trace and like many games, you need a very sensitive and steady touch to play it well. As gaming becomes a more important function on mobile devices it is crucial manufacturers competing in the consumer smartphone market take this into account.

This is why it came as a surprise to me that the Motorola Droid has a much less accurate screen than the iPhone according to MOTO labs (no relation to Motorola). As you can see from this post, lines on an iPhone are generally straight while on the Droid they zigzag.